Integrated Design of Simulation Models for Passive Houses

Modern automation systems require both designtime and runtime integration of diverse engineering tools. Traditional integration approaches are based on repeating manual work, being time-consuming and error-prone. In this paper, applications of semantic integration, dealing with meaning of objects and their interfaces, is explained and shown on a real industrial use-case. Simulations are useful tools for process optimization or performance testing and the presented methodology makes their design for particular industrial plants flexible. The use-case shows that the design of simulation models for passive houses can be user-friendly and feasible even for non-experts as it is based on a graphical tool that enables to draw a passive house floor plan. Since neither this tool nor a universal simulation library, comprising atomic simulation blocks, were not intended for simulation purposes, the presented methodology is a typical example of tool integration having heterogeneous data models. The goal of this paper is to propose an ontology-based formalization of knowledge representing structures of real industrial plants and simulation models. The paper also introduces the design of simulation models for passive houses from other engineering sources, which can be used by non-experts for simulation modeling. The practical usage is restricted by the fact that simulation parameters must be entered manually. The main contributions of the paper are the proposed structure of an automation ontology and a workflow of simulation model design that is not common in engineering disciplines. Keywords-Semantic integration, simulation model, passive house, ontology, automation system design phase.